Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Creation of Margarine

In
the period prior to the 20th century, butter was a luxury commodity. Only the
wealthy and the aristocracy could only afford. The main reason was it’s made of
pure dairy. And dairy was too expensive for the common people. And so in the
1860’s, a leader would present a prize that would led to the creation of a
butter substitute – margarine.

Napoleon
III, ruler of France, was looking in a way to resolve the expensive price of
fats and oils, most important being butter. His country was experiencing status
of great power. Militarily, its strength was one of the strongest in the world.
Economically, it was experiencing the industrial revolution. Napoleon III rose
as he fought for the rights of laborers and the rising middle class, the bourgeoisie.
And one problem of the urban poor was the expensive butter which could help in
cooking and preservation. In order to gain continuous support of the people, he
must solve the problem. As a result in 1866, he announced that he would give a
reward to whoever could make a substitute for butter.

For
three years, the contest was on. It seemed no one interested. Or better yet,
the contest was forgotten or ignored by the scientific community.

It
was not until a worker from Napoleon III’s personal farm, the Ferme Imperiale de la Faisanderie, passed
his entry to Napoleon III. He was Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès. Mège-Mouriès was
simple chemist from the southern regions of France. During 1840’s up to 1850’s
he made several innovations that helped the French food industry. He filed
patents from improving sugar extraction to a new type of chocolate. In 1861, he
was awarded the Legion d’honneur after improving the bread rations of the
French Army.

Mège-Mouriès
passed an entry to Napoleon III for a cheaper substitute for butter. He called
his product Oleomargarine. Oleo came from the ingredient Oleo oil and margarine
from a Greek word that meant pearl. Mège-Mouriès research for oleomargarine
dates back when he was still a student of Michel Eugene Chevereul, a chemist that
discovered margaric acid. From this Mège-Mouriès started to study a butter
substitute at Napoleon III’s farm. He focused in using beef fat as a based. He then
mixed it with oleo oil, salt, and milk. The mixture was then emulsified in
order to milk the fat, oil, and dairy. The result was then chilled. It then
resulted to somewhat unappetizing and pearly like white substance, thus called
margarine.

Napoleon
III gave a reward to Mège-Mouriès because of his discovery and patented it. The
reward allowed him to build a factory in Paris to produce oleomargarine. The
factory and the product, however, was short lived. Just a year after Mège-Mouriès
discovery of margarine, the Franco-Prussian War began. And a year after the
start of the war, Napoleon III surrendered to Prussian Chancellor Otto von
Bismarck. Paris was surrounded and bombarded by the Prussian Army. The
bombardment led to the destruction of Mège-Mouriès’ factory. Lacking of cash
and no capability of manufacturing his invention, in 1871, he sold the patent
to a Dutch businessman, Antonious Johannes Jurgens, the owner of Jurgen. The
company later merge with another company to form the multi-national Unilever.